There was little food to be found, but there was a well and plenty of beds and kitchens and lots of clothing. They butchered a mule and salted the meat. They set themselves up in the homes that were to their individual liking. Brooke asked his wife which home she most preferred and she looked at several before selecting one at the far end of town with a small fence at its side.
“For livestock,” she said. “Horses or pigs.”
Theirs was a small home on a small plot in a very small town. It had two beds, a couch, a fireplace and stove, and a large wooden dining table. For anything they needed, they scavenged. She found a piano in what was once the saloon and she had Brooke and Marston move it into their house. In what might have once been the inn, she opened an armoire in a back room.
“It’s nice,” said Brooke.
“But not for us,” she answered.
The piano took up nearly a quarter of the shared space. She played beautifully. Brooke had never heard anything like it. It was not like bar music, or the upbeat steps you might hear in a brothel. She lingered the notes, let them ring out. She sang softly, songs he did not know. He kept his distance. She was growing confident in her confusion. She called him John and every time the smirk she wore softened. Soon, she called him John as if it were the name she’d always known him by. They lived together more as brother and sister than man and wife, but they had an affectionate air about them that gave their neighbors no question. Slowly, they began to cultivate the land that extended beyond their home. Brooke dug irrigation ditches and planted seeds he found in an abandoned shop near the center of town. They offered a percentage of their yield to Wendell in exchange for the first calf born from his livestock. Brooke also offered to work for him throughout the reconstruction of most of the buildings, or the destruction of those that were too far gone. They actively traded and dealt with the family, but they were less social here than they had been even while wagon training. Occasionally, Marston dropped by and spoke with Brooke. Marston was planning to open the store. He would get a line on products from the nearest city, an address for which he had discovered amongst the old mail that was clogging the cubby holes in the abandoned post office.
“It is as if we had stumbled into Paradise,” said Marston.
They were seated in two of the four chairs claimed by Brooke and the woman he met in the snow, who had taken to calling herself Mary.
“And what if the good people of Wolf Creek return?” said Brooke.
“Wolf Creek is no more,” said Marston, “for we are in Wendell’s Valley.”
They began to brew and grow and cattle were born. In not much time at all, each had fallen into step with a private life of sorts. Wendell and Irene occupied a home by the church, and led sermons and sing-alongs from the pulpit every Sunday. Marston, Jack, and Clay attended these weekly gatherings with the three younger women, Wendell’s confidante, the slanted-speaker, and the girl who had been in the back of the wagon with Mary when she was ill. These women were named Clara, Dorothy, and Caroline, respectively. Clara, it turned out, was Marston’s wife. Formally, at least. She seemed closer to his father, and achieved most of her ends by going through Wendell, rather than Marston. Caroline and Dorothy were sisters to Marston, Jack, and Clay, and Caroline was the youngest of the lot. They sat in the front pew together at the church, and every so often, Brooke and Mary would seat themselves in the back row to watch the proceedings, if only for the company.
They planted a sign at either end of the town, one facing the desert and the other facing the path that led in from the woods.
One night, Brooke and Mary were on the porch, just watching the sky. It was spectacularly plain. The clouds moved along at varying speeds. It was otherwise a constant shade of blue.
“Could you ever have imagined our lives would one day look like this?” said Brooke.
“I am not so sure what you imagine our life looks like,” said Mary. “When I look, I hardly see anything at all.”
They were quiet then. It was warm out. Mary had boiled the water for Brooke’s bath, and it was cooling in the tub toward the back of the house. Their arms were still, perched on the rests their chairs provided. Flies worked a bit of manure just past the fence. A faint funnel of smoke lifted from the chimney of the cafe. A man came to town.
Bird did not sleep that night at the fountain. He slowly sobered and realized that he was cold and shivering. He warmed himself with his hand where he could. When the sun rose, he wandered back to the staircase and stood before it. He could not wrap his mind around it, and found it incredibly inspirational. It was beautifully crafted and solitary. It was hopeful and grand. He returned to the mission and found it quiet and still. He wandered the halls and saw no one. He left and walked to the adjacent building, in front of which stood a large man in a vest. It was a bathhouse, open to the public, explained the man. But it was not cheap.
“I am looking for the boss,” said Bird.
“Are you looking for trouble?” said the man.
“No,” said Bird. “I would like to offer my services as a gunfighter.”
“You are a cripple,” said the man.
“No, I am not,” said Bird.
“You’ll have to leave your gun at the desk,” explained the man. He was smiling. Bird did not like the expression.
~ ~ ~
“I have killed one hundred men,” said Bird. “I was in the army.”
“You are a very brave boy,” said the man.
“Do you know Ramon?” said Bird.
The man smiled. “I know him very well,” he said. “I am his cousin. We work together. Do you… know Ramon?”
“We met last night,” said Bird.
The man laughed then and said the boss would be more than happy to meet a friend of Ramon’s.
The boss was a tiny man behind an enormous desk.
“You hope to be a gunfighter?” he said.
Bird was seated in a chair on the opposite side of the desk. The chair was appropriately enormous to match the desk before it. It seemed to swallow Bird as the boss’s chair swallowed him.
“I am a gunfighter,” said Bird. “I hope to find work. I have a wife and need a home.”
“Our men live in the mission,” said the boss. “Where is your wife?”
“I do not know,” said Bird.
The boss smiled then.
“I see,” he said. “You are friends with Ramon?”
Bird nodded.
“Ramon is a good man, and he is trouble.” He had tiny eyes, the small boss behind the desk. They were focused, but there was nothing cruel in it.
A hand set upon Bird’s good shoulder and he turned to meet the gaze of a considerable man in a top hat.
“Would you like a drink?” said the man. “You have the look of someone who has been out late with Ramon.” He smiled.
“Yes,” said Bird. “Something that does not sting, though.”
“You are eyeing my hat,” said the man.
Bird looked away.
“It’s yours.” The man placed the hat atop Bird’s head.
“It suits you,” said the boss. “Where were we?”
“I cannot honestly say,” said Bird, fussing with the hat now. “I am not confident in my standing with you.”
The boss laughed. “Nor should you be. If you come to work for me, you will only be as good as your last completed job. I do not carry much love for killers and fighters. I abhor violence and its necessity. Otherwise I would not need a mission of killers at my disposal. I am not so bad with a gun myself. Do you have terms?”